Article excerpt

BEHIND the flat statistics of crime in America rising 2 percent
in 1989, just released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lie
broader questions: Who are the people victimized by all this crime?
In violent crimes did most victims and criminals know each other?
And do the figures indicate that America is moving to a
significantly higher rate of crime in the years ahead?

A good deal is known about the victims of crime. But no one can
say with certainty which crime is shooting up over the long haul.

Although women and the elderly in general are most fearful of
being crime victims, they are the least victimized, according to
studies. "Fear of crime is not just related to risk," statistician
Michael Rand of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "It is also
related to persons' belief in their ability to come out of crime
uninjured." Many women and elderly men have "a feeling of
helplessness" at the thought of being victimized, he adds.

In violent and most other crimes, Mr. Rand says, "men are
victimized more than women; blacks more than whites; the young (16
to 24) more than the old; and people in cities more than people in
rural and suburban areas."

"Interracial crime is far less common than people think," says
crime specialist Gail Funke, a sociology professor at James Madison
University in Washington, D.C. "Mostly it's black on black, and
white on white."

A Department of Justice sample study of nearly 4 million crimes
in the 1980s found that five times as many crimes were committed by
white criminals as black ones against white victims, Dr. Funke says.
Similarly, eight times as many crimes were committed against blacks
by black criminals as by white ones.
Relationship with victims

Overall, "more violent crimes are committed by strangers," Funke
says, "but more murders are committed by people who know each
other." She cites Justice Department statistics that report that in
about three-quarters of all robberies, criminals did not know their
victims. But she adds that in murders, "the victim and the offender
knew each other in over half of all homicides - 57 percent."

No one yet knows how much of the male-on-male violence is drug
related, says Matt Silberman, a sociology professor at Bucknell
University. Law enforcement authorities say many of today's fatal
urban shootings stem from disputes over drugs, and often over drug
distribution "rights."

Across the United States, crime reported by police departments to
the FBI rose 2 percent from 1988 to 1989, according to the US
Justice Department statistics made public Sunday. Violent crime
increased 5 percent, and property crime by 2 percent.

Further, the rate of murder continues to accelerate thus far in
1990 by about 8 percent nationwide, according to a report of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, made public July 31. …